How To Create a Goldcard

I. Before You Begin

1. Some memory cards simply will not let you edit them in the way we are about to, so you may need to do this procedure and if it doesn’t work, try a new memory card. 2GB Kingston SD card DOES work for sure so up to you if you want to just buy one of those before beginning.

2. YOU WILL NEED AN SD ADAPTER! This can be a MicroSD to USB that allows you to plug the SD card into your computer’s USB port OR a MicroSD to SD adapter if you have a SD port on your computer.

II. Setup ADB

1. Follow these instructions (with video) to setup ADB for your phone, then come back to this procedure to continue.

III. Create a Goldcard

1. Put the memory card you want to use for the GoldCard into your phone.

2. With the memory card in your phone, click on Settings, SD and Phone storage, then click Unmount SD card. Once it unmounts, click Format SD card. (Please keep in mind that some memory cards don’t work, and this will erase all data on your SD Card so back all the data up first to your computer)

3. On the Phone, goto Settings, Applications, Development and then make sure USB Debugging is checked.

4. *Make sure you have installed the SDK and Fastboot correctly from Section I!!!
Plug the phone into the computer and then open the Command Prompt (goto the start menu and type in cmd in the search box). Then type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line.

cd\
cd\AndroidSDK\tools\
adb devices

(wait for it to show a serial number underneath, if it doesn’t then reinstall the driversfrom section I).
Then type:

adb shell
cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:*/cid (There is no spaces in this line EXCEPT right after the word cat in the beginning, make sure to put that space in)

5. A code will display, write the code down (MAKE SURE TO WRITE IT DOWN EXACTLY!)

6. Now with the code written down, simply write it backwards (it must be reversed, so if the code is 123456789, slowly write it backwards and make sure not to make a mistake so it becomes 987654321 then continue to the next step).

7. Now, on your computer, goto http://psas.revskills.de/?q=goldcard and enter your email in the appropriate field and for CID enter the reversed CID you just copied down BUT REPLACE THE FIRST 2 DIGITS WITH 2 ZEROS! (i.e. 12345678910 becomes 00345678910). *Thanks to Viper for providing these Goldcards for FREE!

8. Click continue and then you will receive your goldcard.img via email. Once it arrives save it to your computer.

10. Take your SD card out of your phone and put it into the SD adapter it came with. Then put that into your computer so it shows up on your computer as Removable Disk.

11. Open the Hex Editor (Run as Administrator if one Vista or Windows 7) and click on the Extra tab, then click on Open Disk. Under Physical Disk select Removable Disk (your SD card you just put into the computer). Make sure to UNcheck â€œOpen as ReadOnlyâ€. Click OK.

12. Goto the Extra tab again and click Open Disk Image. Open up the goldcard.img that you saved from your email. You should now have two tabs, one is the SD card (Removable Disk) and the other is the goldcard.img
Press OK when prompted for Sector Size 512 (Hard Disks/Floppy Disks).

13. Click on the Goldcard.img tab and click on the Edit tab and click Select All. Then click on the Edit tab again and click Copy.

14. Click on the Removable Disk tab (Your SD Card) and select offset 00000000 to 00000170 then click on the Edit tab and click Paste Write.

15. Click on File then click Save.

16. Close the Hex Editor.

17. Test what we’ve done:

Take out the memory card from the computer, then put it back in.
Try to open the memory card on the computer (Removable Disk), if it lets you, you are all set. If it asks/tells you to reformat the card, then try steps 13 – 19 again. If it gives you the same error again, then try a different memory card (Erlern said it didn’t work for him until he finally went and bought a Kingston 2GB card, then it worked on that card).

18. You can now use this goldcard to root phones that were previously unrootable!

Reported Issues:

Issue: I get no such directory or file when I type:

cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:*/cid

Solution: Try to type this instead (replace the 1’s after mmc with zeros):

cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:*/cid

Issue: Having difficulty with the cat command…

Solution:

“Plug your phone into your computer with the going to be gold card
Go to my computer
Make sure you mount your phone to your computer
Right click after mounted FORMAT on your drive NOT IN THE SETTINGS>FORMAT MODE (trust me)
dont do quick format let it run its course
After it has completed formatting come back to the steps starting at step number 4.”

David opened a cell phone store on his college campus and started TheUnlockr.com as a personal tech blog back in 2009 along side. He gets an unnatural excitement out of showing others new things about their tech that they might not have known. Reach out to him on the following social networks and say hi.

Quick question. The sd card that i just made the gold card out of; would I have to continue to use it even after i rooted my MyTouch or could i use the one that came with it after rooting? thanks in advance.

me

The whole process is somewhat easier if you use the “goldcard helper” application from the Android market. This automatically obtains the card’s CID and reverses it – so you can directly paste this information in the PSAS website.

I tired this with the memory card that came with my Telstra branded HTC desire (was a Samsung 2gb) and it failed to create a gold card, everything worked great until I plugged it back in and kep asking me to reformat.

I am going to buy another couple of 2gb cards and try again, they are as cheap as chips.

Does this work at all? I’ve currently been through:
1x Nokia 512MB
5x Sandisk 1GB
1x PNY 8GB
And not one of them has worked, all ask for a reformat, 7 cards? How likely is it that I go out, buy another and Windows tells me where to deposit the card?

Bob

And if I learned to read then I’d be able to see:
Under Physical Disk select Removable Disk.
I am a twat, Sandisk’s are fine, might I suggest changing the font size so pillocks like me notice it.

Thanks.

pdawookie

I built the goldcard several times, with a 8gb kingston and 2gb kingston.

each time the card is fine, I requested the goldcard.img with the reversed id, and made sure the first two chars are 00.

I copied the goldcard.img to the 000 – 170 on the removeable disk. Test the card seems to work fine, and then I copy the sappimg.zip and test.. all is fine.

I boot with these cards and it always gives me MAIN VERSION IS OLDER

I have 32A
HBOOT 1.76.0010
CPLD-12
RADIO-6.35.10.10

my CID for 8gb card is 02544d534430384738c7689d8b0099de
reversed and 00’d is 0099008b9d68c73847383044534d5402

my CID of 2gb card is 03534453553032478030ec832f009410
reversed and 00;d is 0094002f83ec30804732305553445303

am I missing something?

many thanks

Francisco

I’ve found exactly the same problem… Did you got any solution?

rob

i messed up. i typed in the 170 instead of clicking until 170 came up. how can i fix it?

Jan Drop

Kept getting the error ‘no such file’etc…
after cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:*/cid
I overlooked the double dot (:) in mmc1 : * and typed a ‘.’ instead…
after this everything went well.
Thanks a lot

Mark

I’ve been having the hardest time. I have my goldcard, did everything in the HxD and tested out the card and no need to reformat it.

The problem arises when I run the RUU. It recognizes my phone and the ROM that’s running on it. The phone restarts and then the RUU starts updating the signature.

Then I get the error:
“ERROR[110]: FILE OPEN ERROR

The ROM Update Utility cannot open the requested files or the files are damaged. The RUU cannot continue with the update.

Please get a complete RUU package and try again”

I’ve done this with both RUU’s and still the same thing. What in the world is going on, it’s driving me nuts.

Mark

Mark

BTW I have a Sprint HTC Hero.

David

I am trying to create a gold card following the steps and when i try i get the error no such file or directory i have tried replacing the 1s with 0s and getting the same thing i have spelled it correctly as well as tried copy and pasting but no luck. can anyone help me? (i am trying to do this for an HTC Legend

slyzer

i also face de same problem, try cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:*/cid it works on my LEGEND… hope can help u

Toto

/sys/class/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:*/cid worked for me as well, thanks! (notice the change from 1 to 0 two times)

http://trylleklovn.net Soren

I get Main Version Older.. I see by the replies here that it means the goldcard was not created correctly, however i can browse the card on the computer just fine, it doesn’t ask me to reformat.

Also the reversed CID already has to 2 first characters as 00’s is this normal?

Sebastian

Hxd Hex editor didn’t work for my p.c just didn’t respond

ariel

hey there guys……for some reson the goldcard is not working for me….tryed a few difrent cards and every time i put back in the computer it says that it needs to be formated….
any ideas????

thanks……

rooli

i had really big problems getting the cid till i found out all you need is the “astro” app…. than:

hey for those who are having problems with the “cat” i took rooli advice and it worked perfectly. i went to my astro app (for those who aint got it you can download it from the market) i pressed folder up, pressed on “sys”, then “class”, then “mmc_host”, then “mmc1″, then “mmc1:ad14″ (this part may be different for yal especially if yal use mmc0 instead of mmc1), then long pressed on cid, chose “open as”, then “text”, then “file editor” and whuala i got my code. and just to double check i went back to the cmd and typed in cat[space]/sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:ad14/cid and i got the same code. hope this helps someone out. thanks rooli for the advice and thanks unlockr looking foward to what i can do know with my rooted g1 dream with cyanogenmod rom cm6